The Wisconsin Primary More People Should Care About

America's Dairyland being quite the center of political gravity these days, it's important to note that the Republicans are having a four-way primary there today to see who's going to run against Tammy Baldwin for the Senate seat left open by the retirement of Herb (Are We Still Cutting Checks To Michael Redd?) Kohl. Former governor and Bush The First cabinet member Tommy Thompson is clinging to a lead over self-financed rival Eric Hovde, with Tea Party fave-rave Mark Neumann and state senator Scott Fitzgerald further up the track, even though all the available evidence is that not many people in Wisconsin are paying much attention.

Most Popular

(You fans of voting hijinks will be happy to know that Kathy Nickolaus, the Waukesha county clerk given to taking results home with her and stashing them in kitchen, next to her mother's hotdish recipe and last week's flyer from Menard's, is not running again. All of the candidates running to succeed her have promised to "improve" Waukesha's election system, which at this point basically would consist of taking Nickolaus's crayons away from her.)

This is the first time Thompson's been on a ballot since 1998, and the Tea Party squabbling aimed at him has spooked a lot of prominent Wisconsin Republicans, including Paul Ryan and the state's other senator, Republican hysteric Ron (Give Me Back A Shred Of My Liberty) Johnson, from making a formal endorsement in the race. (Thompson, however, did get a personal shout-out from the zombie eyed granny starver during the latter's kickoff speech on Saturday morning.) The low turnout could knock everything off the treddle, though. Neumann's Tea Party cred gives him an advantage over both Thompson and Hovde within a small electorate and, with one in five voters telling pollsters that they still haven't made up their minds — Polling Victim Translation: "There's an election Tuesday? No shit?" — Thompson's edge as somebody of whom casual voters actually have heard is dulled a bit. I still think the auld fella pulls this one out, although a Neumann win might give Richard Mourdock in Indiana and Todd Akin in Missouri a third member of the I Cost My Party The Senate By Being A Nut club, and there would be more people for Sharron Angle and Christine O'Donnell to dance with at the annual club cotillion.